The present disclosure relates to an embroidery data processing apparatus, an embroidery data processing program, and a computer-readable recording medium in which the embroidery data processing program is recorded.
Conventionally, in sewing a pattern with a sewing machine, there has been a need to combine a plurality of pattern data pieces to sew a desired pattern. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. Hei 5-49769 describes a pattern data processing apparatus for a sewing machine. This apparatus prepares in advance a plurality of frame patterns which have set data about positions where concrete patterns and character patterns are disposed. When any of the concrete and character patterns corresponding to a frame pattern is selected, the selected concrete and character patterns are disposed in accordance with the position data which is set to that frame pattern. Further, according to an embroidery pattern designing method and apparatus described in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. Hei 9-176955, a plurality of drawings and photos are loaded using a scanner so that images may be edited and combined appropriately on a screen, thereby forming embroidery pattern data.
However, the apparatus described in No. Hei 5-49769 can dispose a pattern only to a position which is set beforehand and cannot edit the disposed pattern to a desired position. The method and apparatus described in No. Hei 9-176955 can edit a pattern in a desired form, but an operator must manually determine the pattern's position and size before editing, resulting in a labor consuming job. In particular, if it is desired to dispose a principal pattern at a center and accessory patterns around the principal pattern, as in the case of disposing some patterns around photo embroidery, it is desirable to reduce the labor of editing.